Psyc Patient + Facebook = ???

[nackee]

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I just started my psyc rotation, and within the first few days I received a message from one of the patients I interviewed during outpatient clinic. The psychiatrist who follows this patient is currently out of town, so I can't immediately bring the matter up with him.

Under normal circumstances, I would have ignored the message completely and put it out of mind; however, considering this individual's depression, I hesitate to do this. I would hate to cause this patient's depressive episode to worsen.

I briefly entertained the notion of replying to say that it would be inappropriate to communicate with a patient in such a manner, but I'm afraid any response would only open the door to further messages.

Any thoughts?

 

[Perrotfish]

1) No, you should not contact him.

2) If your psychiatrist is out of town, someone should be covering his patients. You should notify that person if you can.

 

[ZagDoc]

1) No, you should not contact him.

2) If your psychiatrist is out of town, someone should be covering his patients. You should notify that person if you can.

This.

 

[GladifImakeit]

The poor guy is probably lonely. Why not invite him out for dinner/drinks and possibly a movie?

 

[Rendar5]

umm...no. There that was easy.

You're not his friend and you're not his savior. You're his interviewer and possibly healthcare provider. If you not accepting his friend request is capable of driving him to suicide, then he needs to be involuntarily hospitalized for his depression.

 

[DrBowtie]

What they all said + put your facebook on lockdown. People shouldn't be able to just find you.

 

[phospho]

I just started my psyc rotation, and within the first few days I received a message from one of the patients I interviewed during outpatient clinic. The psychiatrist who follows this patient is currently out of town, so I can't immediately bring the matter up with him.

Under normal circumstances, I would have ignored the message completely and put it out of mind; however, considering this individual's depression, I hesitate to do this. I would hate to cause this patient's depressive episode to worsen.

I briefly entertained the notion of replying to say that it would be inappropriate to communicate with a patient in such a manner, but I'm afraid any response would only open the door to further messages.

Any thoughts?

you need to change your privacy settings... you can make it that they can't find you unless they're looking at the friends list of a mutual friend... i.e. if they put your name into the search function, nothing pops up...

 

[hippiedoc13]

1) No, you should not contact him.

2) If your psychiatrist is out of town, someone should be covering his patients. You should notify that person if you can.

This.

you need to change your privacy settings... you can make it that they can't find you unless they're looking at the friends list of a mutual friend... i.e. if they put your name into the search function, nothing pops up...

And this.

If this patient has poor enough boundaries that he/she is searching Facebook for a random med student who they interacted with on one occasion in an outpatient clinic...and managed to remember your first and last name to search for you later...then there is a lot more serious pathology there than a simple case of depression. Stay far far far away.

If you are on a psych rotation with some residents or attendings who seem cool, this would be a good thing to bring up with them, in general terms, to learn how they would handle such a situation and the various issues that it raises. It's a good learning point. As a psychiatrist I probably explicitly deal with and think about limits and boundaries more often than my colleagues in other specialties, but dealing with patients who have boundary issues will come up in every specialty at some point, no matter which one you choose.

 

[da8s0859q]

The poor guy is probably lonely. Why not invite him out for dinner/drinks and possibly a movie?

What they all said + put your facebook on lockdown. People shouldn't be able to just find you.

There you go. Lock 'er up and stay away. Very away. Ignore / block / change privacy settings to avoid this crap in the future.

 

[xanthomondo]

If it's a hot chick I say go for it.

What's better than a crazy hot chick?

 

[Bojangles85]

If it's a hot chick I say go for it.

What's better than a crazy hot chick?

or

 

[peppy]

If this patient has poor enough boundaries that he/she is searching Facebook for a random med student who they interacted with on one occasion in an outpatient clinic...and managed to remember your first and last name to search for you later...then there is a lot more serious pathology there than a simple case of depression. Stay far far far away.

I agree with you. I'd mention this to the patient's attending.

 

[docbill]

You should become bbf with this person.. and poke them back and forth on FB.

Really do you need people to answer your OP?

 

[nackee]

I guess I wasn't communicating clearly in my first post. I never intended to invite an ongoing conversation with this patient. I was deciding between ignoring it completely or replying to explicitly shut down any further communication through facebook.

Additionally, I was curious if this was significant enough to bring to the attention of the attending (or the covering attending in this case).


On the other hand, I do need someone to harvest my farmville crops.

 

[metallo]

I just started my psyc rotation, and within the first few days I received a message from one of the patients I interviewed during outpatient clinic. The psychiatrist who follows this patient is currently out of town, so I can't immediately bring the matter up with him.

Under normal circumstances, I would have ignored the message completely and put it out of mind; however, considering this individual's depression, I hesitate to do this. I would hate to cause this patient's depressive episode to worsen.

I briefly entertained the notion of replying to say that it would be inappropriate to communicate with a patient in such a manner, but I'm afraid any response would only open the door to further messages.

Any thoughts?

First of all, if you haven't done so already, tighten up those privacy settings... both for your profile and others' ability to search for you.

I think if this happened to me I would definitely discuss it with the patient's psychiatrist -- in this case, I would wait until the guy is back in town unless he's going to be gone for more than a few weeks. I would also think it's safer to ignore the message than respond to it. The patient will probably just think you didn't recognize his or her name or profile picture -- it's not that inconceivable. On the other hand, if you actually message the patient, there's no doubt as to why you didn't accept the friend request, which could complicate things. Again, definitely mention this to the attending.

 

[peppy]

I guess I wasn't communicating clearly in my first post. I never intended to invite an ongoing conversation with this patient. I was deciding between ignoring it completely or replying to explicitly shut down any further communication through facebook.
Additionally, I was curious if this was significant enough to bring to the attention of the attending (or the covering attending in this case).
On the other hand, I do need someone to harvest my farmville crops.

What I was trying to say is that I think it would only cause problems if you engaged the patient in any communication. I wouldn't respond to the patient (but as I commented I definitely would bring it up with the attending). As a psych resident, I would absolutely want to know if a med student on my team was getting inappropriate messages from a patient.